“I found scarcely any,” he answered, “only his will and a memorandum of a few investments. May I ask——”
She turned towards the door.
“No!” she said, “do not ask me any questions. To tell you the truth, I am not yet fully persuaded that the necessity exists.”
“I do not understand,” he protested.
“Forgive me,” he said, with his hand upon the gate. Page [117]
She shrugged her shoulders. She did not trouble to explain her words. He followed her along the cool, white-flagged hall, hung with old prints and trophies of sport, into the few yards of garden outside, brilliant with cottage flowers. Beyond the little iron gate her carriage was waiting—a low victoria, drawn by a pair of great horses, whose sleek coats and dark crimson rosettes suggested rather a turn in the Park than these country lanes. The young man was becoming desperate. She was leaving him altogether mystified. Somewhere or other he had missed his cue: he had meant to have conducted the interview so differently. And never had she looked so provokingly well! He recognized, with hopeless admiration, the perfection of her toilette—the trim white flannel dress, shaped by the hand of an artist to reveal in its simple lines the peculiar grace of her slim figure; the patent shoes with their suggestion of open-work silk stockings; the black picture hat and veil, a delicate recognition of her visit to a house of mourning, yet light and gossamer-like, with no suggestion of gloom. Never had she seemed so desirable to him, so fascinating and yet so unattainable. He made a last and clumsy effort to re-establish himself.
“Forgive me,” he said, with his hand upon the gate, “but I must ask you what you mean by that last question. My father had no secrets that I know of. How could he, when for the last forty years his life was practically spent in this village street?”
She nodded her head slowly.
“Sometimes,” she murmured, “events come to those even who sit and wait, those whose lives are absolutely secluded. No one is safe from fate, you know.”